Continuing with Mark’s stories about faith, today we seem to head in a different direction (Mk 6:1-6). Unlike previous stories which told of faith and healing, we are now faced with absence of faith, and no healing, or at least none that Mark thinks worthy of elaboration. Our first reading (Ez 2:2-5) further emphasizes that even for those who might be expected to know better, faith may be in short supply.
Despite the apparent shift there is however a continuity in what Mark is telling us. We noted last week that the healing that Jesus offers is not something that is done to us, rather it involves a commitment and requires a response from us. That is what was lacking from Jesus’s close friends and family when Jesus returns to his home town. Their inability to see beyond the familiarity of their relationship prevented Jesus from healing.
We can easily imagine that healing, particularly miraculous healing, is an act of God that is independent of us. It’s the ultimate manifestation of the power of God. God is in control. But scripture doesn’t present God’s power in that way. His power in not something imposed on us. It comes through a collaboration. In some way we participate in our healing, it doesn’t just happen to us.
The intimacy of this connection is demonstrated clearly by Paul when he talks of the “thorn in his flesh” (2 Cor 12:7-10). We have no idea of what this was, although there has been endless speculation, ranging from a limp to homosexuality! Paul explains how he has come to terms with Jesus’ failure to heal him. In the collaboration that Paul has with Jesus, as the last of the apostles, he is fully aware of Jesus’ power, starting with his own conversion and extending to the conversion of many others. Paul does not doubt Jesus’ power to heal him, and pleads for that healing, but does not receive it. He has to work out why.
We may well face similar challenges. We may not have an answer, as Job didn’t. But it does not mean that Jesus lacks the power. Jesus saved the world by dying. His power in shown in weakness. It may be hard to be grateful for our weakness, our inadequacy, as Paul learned to be, but it is in through that we can share in Jesus’ healing power, even when no healing occurs.